Everyone makes the mistake of trusting Google once or twice. At least in this case it's just a domain name, easily transferred anywhere. It would suck to depend on a GCP bespoke service only to have it disappear next week.

This is kinda a fool me once, shame on you, fool me two hundred and some odd times, shame on me, sort of situation.

Everyone believes they know the hard line Google will not cross for shutting down products, and everyone eventually is wrong.

It was the best domain registrar I had ever used - fast, streamlined, and convenient. So of course Google, the GM of Silicon Valley (1), had to sell it off or shut it down.

1: GM also has a reputation for getting a product just right and then killing it.

Same. I'm honestly shocked they're getting rid of the service. It's core infrastructure, cheap as chips to run, and binds people to using Google. Same reason why Microsoft hosts domains.

You have your mail, storage, office suite, photos, chat, etc, hosted by Google, they made it easy to host your domain there working with all those services, and all that vertically integration kept us comfortably in their warm embrace.

Now they're selling it because... why? Only theory that holds water is it doesn't make _enough_ money. Well sure it isn't a huge revenue source but it isn't losing money either, and the intangibles felt like they more than justified keeping it in-house.

Hopefully the inside story comes out, as I would be fascinated to hear their thought process.